The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (film)

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003) is a fantasy / steam punk action-adventure movie based on the comic book by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill, which is in turn based on several public domain works of literature.

The film was directed by Stephen Norrington, from a screenplay by James Robinson.

The film is notable for the changes it brought to the story's only central female character, Mina.

Cast

• Sean Connery as Allan Quatermain
• Naseeruddin Shah as Captain Nemo
• Peta Wilson as Mina Harker
• Tony Curran as Rodney Skinner (The Invisible Man)
• Stuart Townsend as Dorian Gray
• Shane West as Tom Sawyer
• Jason Flemyng as Dr. Henry Jekyll/Edward Hyde
• Richard Roxburgh as M

Notes

The character of Mina was changed significantly for the movie. In the comics, she is a human being, and is the team's leader, though she has no superpowers, only her considerable strength of will. She goes by the name of Mina Murray, and faces social disapproval as a Victorian woman divorced from her husband (Jonathan Harker).

In the movie, she is not the team leader. Instead, she is going by the name of Mina Harker, and possesses vampiric powers and scientific skills. These superficially kick-ass aspects come at a tremendous cost, in the narrative demotion and sexualisation of her role.

This demotion of the *only* significant female character in the movie is done for the benefit of a male character (obviously, as there aren't any other female characters to benefit at her expense!).

The team leadership role has been transferred to Sean Connery's Allan Quatermain, whose character also gained an additional father-son story dynamic from the addition of Tom Sawyer, who was absent from the story in the comics!

External Links

• IMDb listing
• Wikipedia entry
• Heroine Content review
• The League of Embarrassing Idiots, Suzy McKee Charnas's review of the film

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